


Visenya

by Rhaenyra



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Community: HPFT, Dark Magic, Drama, F/M, Sibling Incest, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-13 11:48:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9122248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhaenyra/pseuds/Rhaenyra
Summary: Visenya Targaryen held many titles.  Lady of Dragonstone.  Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.  Dowager Queen, mother of the king known to history as Maegor the Cruel.The story of the original sister-wife of Aegon the Conqueror.





	1. Lady

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beeezie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeezie/gifts).



**Lady**

  


I was eighteen when I married by brother on the grounds of Dragonstone. He was just shy of seventeen, a man grown, when our parents announced we would marry. I remember the day clearly, my gown of silver and the ceremony based on the weddings held in old Valyria. The island’s inhabitants and all our father’s vassals turned out to see us wed.

I had known I would marry Aegon since we were children, keeping the old traditions alive. When my parents had first told me of my upcoming wedding, we were sitting in my father’s solar. While the hearth fire burned, I had informed them that I knew it was coming. We were adults now and both were willing to do what was best for our family.

Among the forty dragon-riding families of Valyria the eldest son and the eldest daughter would often marry each other. By sharing children, they ensured that there was no question of inheritance. If not wed brother to sister, they would marry the son or daughter of another dragonlord family. But, since the Doom, there had only been us and a few lesser families of Valyrian blood. To outsiders they looked like us: silver-gold hair, pale skin, and the blue or violet eyes that marked those with the blood of the Freehold. Yet they did not have the blood of the dragon. The only ones who could ride dragons had the blood of my ancestors in their veins, even if they did not have the Targaryen name.

That was the sort of marriage my father, the eldest of four boys, had. My mother was a Velaryon, a member of our most trusted allies and the family we turned to when there was no suitable Targaryen spouse available since the Doom. But in addition to the Velaryon name my mother had Targaryen blood through her own mother.

With a brother less than two years my junior, I had long known I would be his wife. We would rule on Dragonstone together, the final outpost held by the dragonlords of old. Rhaenys was to marry a cousin, who in later years would inherit the title of Lord of Driftmark and head of house Velaryon. It was the expected path, the fair path. She had the larger dragon, her mount, Meraxes, having been born before my own Vhaegar, but I would have the higher position in marriage.

That expectation came crashing down three years into my marriage. Aegon had never hidden the fact that he was attracted to Rhaenys. She was the one who had always gotten men’s attention, the beauty and the flirt while I was the hardened warrior. Even so, we were husband and wife and he never strayed from my bed on Dragonstone. Even when he was off with Balerion, flying or fighting or plotting his invasion of the mainland, I knew he had never broken his marriage vows. That was not Aegon’s way. I had no reason to think anything would come of his love of our sister until he told me of his wishes.

We were sitting in the room that would later house the Painted Table, which was then just a roughly cut slab of wood. It was there, looking out over the sea, that he told me of his intention to marry again.

I had been looking over the water at his side, but I had turned to face him. “You want to marry again?” I said, unsure of myself. It seemed so unlike him. He had been dutiful as a husband, but I knew that was because it was expected of him. After nearly three years, I was yet to give him a child. The child that he would need as Lord of Dragonstone to be his heir; the child that I knew he wanted more than I did. We had never discussed our lack of conception, but I knew we both thought about it.

I will admit that was where my mind went then. Did he not believe I could give him a son? Did he really think that there was anybody more likely to give him the dragon-riding heir he would need?

“Rhaenys and I have been discussing it and we think it would be a wise decision.”

I didn’t know why he thought it would be wise, but I suspected it was because they wished to live as man and wife. Instead of asking about his reasoning, I asked, “Does Father know?”

“He does,” Aegon said. “He is not opposed to it.”

“Even with the Lord of Driftmark expecting her hand for his son?”

“An assumption on his part,” he brushed the thought away with a wave of his hand, “she had never been promised to anybody.”

I nodded, remaining calm on the exterior although I felt the rage building. Was I going to be the last to know of this? It was not unheard of to have multiple marriages in Valyria before the Doom, but it was a practice had all but died with it. It had not crossed my mind that Aegon may want to bring the tradition back into practice. All I could ask was, “When?”

“Soon,” he said, turning away from me once more.

He had not lied. In four months’ time, he and Rhaenys were married in the same place he and I had been married in the years before. Rhaenys was beaming, dripping in silver silks and Myrish lace with her neck and ears adorned with diamonds and sapphires. Aegon put the cloak of protection over her – the same one he had placed on me, and our father on our mother before – before they kissed. And, just like that, I was sharing a husband.

If I had dreamed that I could be with child, I was sorely mistaken. Aegon and Rhaenys spent most nights together, although Aegon did his duty with me regularly enough in hopes of finally producing that heir. Yet, even with two wives, it never happened. Years passed and the conversations with Rhaenys turned from wondering who would have the Targaryen heir to if either of us would be able to give Aegon an child.

Perhaps the lack of a baby was what made him turn his sights west more seriously. An invasion had things he could focus on, with plans to make and alliances to forge. There, he could control his own fate, unlike in his quest for an heir. The invasion of the seven independent kingdoms to the west of our island fortress was certainly what held most of his focus in those years, even after Father died and Aegon had ascended as Lord of Dragonstone.

In the early days of what later became known as the year 2 Before Conquest, Rhaenys and I had met with Aegon in the same room he told me he intended to marry her. In many ways it remained unchanged in five years: the same hearth, the same chairs, and the same view. Yet the focal point was nearly unrecognizable. Then it had been partially carved, rough in spots and with the wood pattern clear. Now it had been carved to match the uneven coastlines of the continent, with each kingdom marked and all its cities and major towns labelled. It was probably the most accurate map of Westeros in existence, made from notes taken off ships and on dragon back. It was Aegon’s pride and joy, the mission he had been working on so he could take the next step.

“I have been speaking with Orys and my other advisors. They all agree it is time.”

Orys, the man rumoured to be our half-brother in whispers around the island. He had none of the Valyrian look, but he and Aegon had bonded all the same. He would do anything for my brother. For that, I trusted him.

Aegon did not need to say what his advisors had agreed on. There was only one thing he could mean: the invasion of Westeros. It was a dream older than anything alive except for Balerion, the last living being to have seen Valyria in all its glory. Yet no matter what the Valyrians had intended, they had all died in the fiery monstrosity that destroyed the most advanced civilization the world had ever seen. Aegon dreamed of completing their goal, of taking the west. Then we could rule with our dragons once more, as our ancestors had.

One might think that there were arguments between the three of us, but there weren’t. Aegon and his advisors came up with the initial plans of where to land and how we would begin, but Rhaenys and I were there to listen in. No other king we would be fighting would have his wife involved, but none of them had wives like Rhaenys and I. We were not weak, the sorts who could be pushed around, not even Rhaenys. She could hardly carry a sword, certainly a Valyrian steel one like Dark Sister that I carried, but she and I held the second and third strongest weapons Aegon had. We had Meraxes and Vhagar, named after two of the gods of Valyria. With them, we could inflict mass destruction on our enemies.

And so we travelled from Dragonstone to what would later be dubbed the Crownlands, to a place where three grassy hills overlooked the bay. Rhaenys was the only one to voice the idea that the three hills were a sign of good things to come, as there was one for each of us. Aegon and I dismissed the thought, insisting that it was good sense to control the high ground. No matter the reason, work on a wooden fort began. Our first base on the mainland.

A few lords opposed us, but they did not last long. They bent the knee quickly and our tiny initial force of sixteen hundred men grew. We had the loyalty of our first Westerosi lords, but they did not have the standing to treat with kings. And in those days, Westeros had a lot of kings.

In the days that followed we held the first coronation on the top of the highest hill, the one we dubbed Aegon’s. It was there where I placed a Valyrian steel circlet on his head and Rhaenys named him king of all of Westeros.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on chronology: Rhaenys’s son Aenys was born in 7 After Conquest (AC) and Visenya’s son Maegor in 12 AC. This means in ~40 years married to presumably fertile women, Aegon only fathered 2 children.
> 
> Notes on High Valyrian: Sōvēs is, per the language creator of both Dothraki and Valyrian, the command for “fly” to a single dragon. Dracarys is, of course, High Valyrian for dragon fire.

**The First Queen of the Seven Kingdoms**

 

We split up once we had arrived in what would later be King’s Landing.  I went to Gulltown and Cracklaw Point while Rhaenys went to the Stormlands with Orys, who had a vendetta against their king.  Aegon’s mission was the one that everybody knows, however.  He went to Harren Hoare’s newly finished monstrosity of a castle with some of the Riverlords.  Then he and Balerion proved that dragon flame can melt stone and send krakens running… if they do not burn first.

 

I heard of Aegon’s victory from my place on the shores of the Narrow Sea near Gulltown, in what was then land controlled by young King Ronnel of the Vale and his mother Sharra.  As Dowager Queen and Regent, she called the lords of the Vale to bring their ships.  She even paid for the help of warships out of Braavos with Arryn gold.

 

Lord Daemon Velaryon, commander of our royal fleet, and I drew up plans before the battle.  We did not have the numbers of the Vale lords, but I did not question my men’s loyalty.  Many of them had been loyal to my father, their families proving themselves as faithful Targaryen men since the days of Valyria of old.  There was no question they would die for the cause.

 

“Stay here, my queen,” he urged.  “The men want to fight and to prove their worth in battle.”

 

Had it been anyone else, I would have questioned his motives for keeping me out of battle.  But this was my uncle, my mother’s elder brother.  He had been present at Dragonstone on the day of my birth and had seen me fight since then.  He himself had helped teach me the art of sailing.  “I will sail with you.”  I was most fierce on a dragon, but I could prove myself in other ways.

 

“It would not be wise to leave Vhagar unattended, my queen,” he replied, dipping his head respectfully.  “This is unfamiliar land.  We cannot be too careful with our greatest weapon.”

 

I raised my chin.  “Vhagar will defend himself if needed,” I promised.  “If I am in trouble, he will know and can find me then.”

 

“I do know doubt either of your prowess on the battlefield, but you are untested in a sea battle.  In your armour, you will be safer on land, flying in if necessary.”

 

I looked down, where my uncle had gestured.  My outfit was comprised primarily of black leather and black mail.  In a black sheath decorated with rubies was tucked Dark Sister, ready to be pulled out at the first sign of trouble.  In my tent, there was a full set of plate.  I had received my first set of armour before I had grown breasts and had accumulated more over the years than most of our sworn lords.  I had jewellery, but I did not wear any.

 

“Vhagar and I will wait here,” I conceded, “but you are to summon us if the fleet looks to be in trouble.”

 

Lord Velaryon bowed.  “As you command.”

 

I small contingent of guards stayed as the majority of men boarded our fleet.  As the ships pulled from shore, the captains barked orders to their crews.  The master of ships himself stood on the deck of his own ship, a new cloak of sea green with threads of silver streaming from his shoulders to match the recently chosen colours of his house.  He was examining the ship’s weaponry and talking with one of his officers as his ship disappeared behind others.

 

It was the last time I saw my Uncle Daemon.

 

When news came, it was in the form of one of our fastest ships coming quickly towards where we had made camp.  By the time they had docked and her captain had disembarked, I already knew what he was going to say.

 

He sank down to his knee.  “We sailed at full speed, my queen.  I regret to say the news is not good.  The Arryns were better prepared than expected.  They sunk at least five of the ships I could see.  When we were commanded to leave by Lord Aethon Velaryon when their fleet began to take control of some of our own ships.  I expect by now he will have pulled back.”

 

The hair on the back of my neck prickled.  “Lord Aethon?” I asked, heart heavy.  My eldest cousin and heir to Driftmark, he was an excellent captain and an experienced fighter.  Yet he should not have been making such a command while his father lived.

 

The captain’s face paled.  “I regret to inform you that Lord Daemon’s ship was sunk.  It is expected that all on board were lost.”  His voice wavered.

 

I acknowledged him with a nod and turned on my heel, in the direction of my tent.  My squire jumped up as I entered and, with a snap of my fingers, began to help me don some of my armour.  Bracers that appeared like dragon scales and specially designed chest and shoulder armour to allow maximum mobility for dragon riding went on next.  I slipped a helm over my silver-gold hair and walked out, towards where Vhagar had been sleeping.

 

He seemed to have sensed that I was coming.  His molten eyes met mine as I strode past the guards and into his pen with nary a word.  Crouching down without a spoken command, he positioned himself so I could climb on easily.  At more than fifty years old, he was well accustomed to dragon riders climbing on his back.

 

I gave the single word command that I had countless times before.  “Sōvēs.”

 

The familiar rush of wind going by as we climbed, higher and higher, met my ears.  Vhagar seemed to know that I wanted speed, even though I did not speak once we were in the air.  I leaned slightly and pressed my hand against his back, guiding his path in the direction of where our ships went.

 

It somehow seemed to take both an age and no time at all before the ships came into view on the horizon.  Even from this distance I could make out the different coloured sails that dotted the water and, interspersed with them, the broken hulls of ships that had been destroyed in battle.  With a nudge, I urged him to move both faster and lower as my anger grew.  By the time we reached the ships, the tops of the sails nearly met his flapping wings.

 

Over our own we flew, towards the fleet that Queen Sharra had amassed.  It was there, over the waters at the edge of young King Ronnel’s territory, that I gave the command that would send everything before me up in flames.  Without hesitation, I pressed my fingers down on Vhagar’s back and commanded, “Dracarys.”

 

As the nearest ship burned the others tried to move, but it was far too late for escape.  You cannot outrun a dragon, not even on sea.

 

Somehow, the burning of Harrenhal and the burning of the Arryn fleet did not convince the Westerosi kings.  Not even when word came that Rhaenys, Meraxes, and Orys Baratheon had conquered the Storm Lands, killed King Argilac Durrandon, and taken the supposedly impregnable Storm’s End did they decide it was best to bend the knee.  Although we were spread across the continent, Aegon sent ravens to Rhaenys and I when he received word that two kingdoms that had been warring for as long as anybody could remember had decided to band together to fight us.

 

With haste, Rhaenys and I met Aegon in the Riverlands town known as the Stoney Sept.  There, he informed us of everything he knew.  From his scouting on Balerion, he could say that the King of the West and the King of the Reach had met and were marching closer every day.  Combined they had five times the men we did, apparently convinced in the power their numbers would provide.  They were foolish enough to think that five thousand knights could beat three dragons.

 

No one ever made that mistake again.

 

With the exception of Dorne, Westeros was soon ours.  Even the septons, the religious leaders who claim a man cannot have two wives, were soon accepting Aegon as king.  When he was crowned in front of the realm it was done by the High Septon, who anointed him with seven oils to represent their seven gods.  Then, the king and his two queens, we went back to King’s Landing with our men and wagons of burned swords.

 

Those swords now sit, forged by the fires of Balerion, in the throne room of King’s landing where they make up the Iron Throne.

 

 

*

 

 

 

The early years were difficult.  To rule a new amalgamation of kingdoms with different gods – foreign gods – and different customs requires a balancing act.  To succeed you must be feared or loved or, preferably, both.

 

I was the one they feared.  I knew what they said about me.  I was the warrior queen, the one who was tough and a danger to face in a fight, dragon or no dragon.  Some said I was a sorceress, not trusting a woman with strength who did not follow their seven-faced god.  I ignored what the commoners said and did my best to appease those Aegon needed.  What truly mattered was that I knew how to protect Aegon.  Amid the war with the Dornish, we were both attacked on several occasions.  When I knew he was surrounded by seven of the best knights in the realm, those who made up the newly formed Kingsguard, I found that I could sleep more easily with the knowledge that he was safe.  That sense of safety rarely came because he was physically near me.

 

No, that was an honour bestowed upon Rhaenys.  She was still Aegon’s favourite, loved for her laughter and her heart.  She was the one who gained allies through courtesy and nothing but words.  She gained more than allies with her charm, men and even women would fawn over her.  On occasion, on the nights Aegon was with me, I would see her invite some to her bed.

 

Aegon was the rare person who could be loved and feared.  We were outsiders, but the people respected him despite that.  He had ousted their old leaders and the future of the Targaryen line was uncertain, but he had the love of the people.  Rhaenys and I discussed how he managed to get everything from them, but we never could figure it out.

 

Seven years after the Conquest, Rhaenys finally did what I had failed to do for seventeen years: she gave our husband a son.  The bells rang all day, announcing to all the birth of Price Aenys Targaryen, son of King Aegon and Queen Rhaenys and Prince of Dragonstone.

 

Aenys was a weak thing at first, although my brother and sister refused to see it.  Aegon seemed to hardly believe that the little babe in cradle with the lilac eyes was his.  Every time he held Aenys his face would light up, so pleased to have the child he wanted after all this time.

 

I was happy for him, but it burned me up inside.  The crown prince was supposed to be my son.  Any child born to Aegon and I would surely would not be a sickly baby.  Even worse, I think we all had doubts that Aenys was born of Aegon’s seed.  We kept our mouths shut, but I heard others whispering.  After so long with no children, no stillborn babes, not even a miscarriage between us, Aenys was one of two things: he was a miracle or he was only a Targaryen on his mother’s side.

 

He had the look of a Targaryen, no doubt, and he formed the unbreakable bond of rider and dragon with the dragon hatchling Quicksilver when he was not yet two.  Yet one of the men who had been seen sneaking into Rhaenys’s bed chamber was none other than our Velaryon cousin Aethon, the one I assumed she would marry all those years ago.  Aethon also had the silver-gold hair of old Valyria and deep blue eyes, the sort of blue that was not uncommon in our line.  If he were to father a child with my sister, you would expect him or her to look very similar to little Aenys.

 

Aegon and Rhaenys both did not like to leave Aenys at first.  Neither ever said why, but I knew they worried for their son’s health.  He received a combination of Rhaenys’s milk and the milk of a wet nurse, but there was always concern about his growth.  Even when he began eating food specially selected by the head chef and a maester, he was not a large child.  When Aegon was in Dragonstone so was Aenys and when father ruled from the Aegonfort in King’s Landing his son was never far.

 

Despite their desire to stay with Aenys, they both left in turn.  When the Dornish rose in rebellion, we all flew down to the rebellious kingdom of elderly Princess Meria Martell at times to attempt to make them a part of our united Westeros.  Yet, despite their elderly queen and strange ways, Dorne managed to put up a fight unlike that seen in any other kingdom.  A Dornish lord went as far as to kidnap Orys Baratheon and demand we pay ransom to have him returned.  I wanted to refuse and to take them in battle, a plan even Rhaenys sided with.  Aegon would not hear of it though, insisting that he needed his Hand back.  And so the debate ended and the ransom paid.

 

The Dornish snakes kept their word, much to my surprise, but when Orys was returned his sword hand was missing.  Evidently, the Dornish lords had thought by removing the sword hands of their captives they would no longer assault Dorne.  That was true of the men themselves, but the fire burning in Aegon’s eyes told me I would not need to convince him to fight this time.  He would not let them get away with maiming our subjects.  We both desired revenge.

 

Even with the war raging on, Aegon continued his travels through the kingdom.  At times Rhaenys and I would join him, when he decided he did not have something important he could trust to no one other than one of his queens.  Even so, he and Rhaenys were rarely both parted from Aenys.  By then he was nearly three, his hair still silver-gold and now down to his shoulders.  He was not robust, but seemed to have gained strength ever since he bonded with Quicksilver.  The dragon hatchling grew even more rapidly, with silver scales so the ones on Meraxes.

 

On a sunny day in the year 10 after conquest, Rhaenys bid us farewell in the courtyard.  She wore a mix of black leather and red silks underneath her sparse armour, which fit close to her body.  She even wore rubies and gold around her neck, glinting subtly in the sun.  She and Aegon and Aenys came down together, the boy in our husband’s arms, having spent the night together, as usual.  She was about to travel to Hellholt, the castle of the Ullers in the Dornish desert.  Other men were in the area, having been battling for some time.  With the aid of dragons, we were not limited in the way they were.  Even vast distances over the desert were not a problem when you could fly over on dragonback.

 

I hugged her first, wishing her luck.  She was one of the few people permitted to touch me.  Even though she had married my husband and given him the son I was supposed to have birthed, she was still my sister and Aegon’s other queen.  After another three and a half years with no pregnancies between us, resentment over Aenys was fading.  Aegon’s or not, he may be the only Targaryen in his generation.

 

With a kiss to our husband and their baby, she made her way over to Meraxes.  A minute later she was in the air and a few minutes later she had disappeared from view.

 

The next days passed as normal, or at least as any other when Rhaenys was gone.  Aegon slept in my bedchamber and we tried to make a baby of our own, even though I don’t think either of us had much hope left any longer.  I was thirty-eight, Aegon a year younger, and we had been married for twenty years.  I had done a lot for him, helping him win a kingdom and saving his life, but I had failed in my wifely duty to provide an heir.

 

We were breaking our fast when the raven arrived.  The white faced Grand Maester passed the scroll to Aegon wordlessly, with his hand visibly shaking.  I watched as Aegon’s purple eyes read over the words on the parchment, chewing a piece of sausage.  It was only when he gave an involuntary reaction to what he was reading, eyes narrowing and knuckles going white, that I realized that this was bad news.

 

“What happened?” I asked.

 

Aegon’s eyes darted to Aenys, who was sitting down the table with some of our advisors.  The boy was laughing, distracted by something his hatchling was doing next to him, and Aegon dragged his eyes back to meet mine.  “Meraxes was shot down over Hellholt,” he announced, loudly enough that the others could hear.  “A Crossbolt to the eye took him down.”

 

My stomach clenched.  “And Rhaenys?”

 

He said only one word, the one I was dreading.  “Dead.”

 

I swung a fist, sending my goblet and the liquid in it flying.  “Tell them I’m coming for her body,” I said, pushing back my seat.  I could probably be ready in half an hour, if I took the time to grab more than Dark Sister and a dagger or two before going to find Vhagar.  The diplomatic thing to do would be not to armour myself, but that was not in my nature.  I had no intention of using them, but having the Valyrian steel strapped to me and a dragon under me would help intimidate the bastards at Hellholt who had killed my baby sister.

 

“They say they have already moved her body.”  Aegon – the Conqueror, the Dragon himself – had tears in his eyes and his voice cracked.  “They don’t intend to return her to us so we can cremate and bury her properly.”

 

There was a reason that the years that followed were known as the years of the Dragon’s Wroth.


End file.
